Posts by HelenaHandcart

Re: Ribboned for your pleasure

I did not say that proofreading constitutes plagiarism. I said that some universities consider it to be malpractice and that students should check the policy. Here is an example of such a policy: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/AAandR/cpff.htm. I did not say that anyone was being unethical; what I said was that students need to check the policies at their own universities before asking anyone to proofread their work.

Universities have procedures for students to apply for deadline extensions or for mitigating circumstances to be taken into consideration if they are unable to complete assessed work. However, loss or failure of personal IT equipment, including cloud storage is unlikely to be considered grounds for an extension or mitigating circumstances appeal. Universities provide facilities such as secure file storage and remote access for students. If these fail and a student loses work then the university is obliged to take this into account. If the student keeps all her work on her personal laptop, portable drives or personal cloud storage then the university will take the view that the student does not deserve special consideration because s/he could (and should) have used the university facilities. Your daughter should check the policies on extensions/special circumstances and on cloud storage at her own university.

Re: Ribboned for your pleasure

Proof-reading/3rd party editing, however minor and even when done by your mum, is strictly forbidden by some universities. The daughter needs to check the university's policies on plagiarism and malpractice. By the way, no matter how easy it is to use iCloud storage, if it fails for any reason then the daughter is not going to get sympathy from the university. The university will provide its own secure storage and if a student chooses not to use that facility but to rely on iCloud, Dropbox etc instead, then the student will be held culpable if data loss leads to missing an assignment deadline.

My father is in his eighties and has an iPod touch which was a gift. He uses it mainly for music but occasionally for games, maps and email. He could clearly use a high-end smartphone but would be completely deterred by the cost. It's not a matter of whether or not he could afford it but having grown up during WW2 and the following years of rationing he has a very strong 'waste not want not' ethic. He simply would not see an iPhone or equivalent as value for money.

Re: I find these whole debate a Joke !

UK employers now have to ask new employees for proof that they are eligible to work in the UK. This is usually a passport but for UK citizens it may be a birth certificate or naturalisation papers. If you are offered a job (in the UK), you will definitely be asked for ID, probably at interview.

I agree with you but not everyone has confidence to talk back in that way, especially if she is the only woman in a large group of men. However, I think it is very unlikely that Adria Richards lacks confidence in that way. My main points were a) a woman who hears offensive remarks made by men behind her is not necessarily eavesdropping on a private conversation and b) tweeting was pretty much the absolute worst way to deal with it.

For those who say she was 'eavesdropping' on a private conversation... As I understand it, the men were sitting directly behind her. It may have been a private conversation that she was not intended to hear BUT it is not unknown for men sitting within hearing distance of a woman to make inappropriate comments or jokes with the intention that she overhear. For a woman this is an intensely uncomfortable and intimidating situation. It could certainly discourage the woman concerned from attending that or similar events in the future. Therefore, Adria Richard's concern and anger were probably justified. That said, the appropriate response (if she did not feel comfortable tackling the perpetrators herself) would have been to talk to a conference official. If the conference had declined to take action then THAT would be the time to go public. She was wrong to go to Twitter and, in doing so, brought her own company into disrepute.

Re: All about connections

Docks might not be the best way of connecting devices to speakers but if you already have docks then there is a strong incentive to buy a device that connects to them - even if you actually prefer an alternative product. The accessories provide an 'ecosystem' that ties you to the original device brand. Once the original brand ceases to connect to the accessories then you are free to look around and may well choose something different. Whether the lighting connector is better is not the point; it's that the lightning connector breaks the accessories 'ecosystem' that has helped to keep people buying ipods/iphones.

All about connections

If you have to uglify your super-cool speaker dock with an adaptor then you can choose whether to go for an iPhone 5 lightning cable/adaptor or an audio cable for your an Android phone. The Lightning connector means that people's accessories no longer tie them to the iHardware.

Re: Tablets

I'm struggling to understand how a tablet touchscreen keypad can work "or the blindest bat to use" but perhaps I have misunderstood you. A keypad with physical buttons can be operated by feel alone - there's a little raised dot on the '5' key so that you know where your fingers are. However, if you can't see the virtual buttons on a touchscreen then you have no way of knowing where they are.

The breach of copyright occurs when the text/images/whatever are stored in your browser cache. All browsers do this. It's not the eyeballing of the webpage that breaches copyright; it's the fact that the browser works by downloading a copy. The basic problem with UK copyright law is that there is no 'fair use' clause. Where such a clause exists then the temporary cacheing of a web page is not a problem.

By the way, there was an article in the Guardian today about authors' rights and volunteer-run libraries. Apparently it may be a breach of copyright for volunteer libraries to lend a book if the author has not given permission. Who knew?

My Macbook accidentally came into contact with a small amount of water. After drying out it appeared to work OK when plugged into the mains except for the charging indicator. The Mac repair shop said that the motherboard showed signs of corrosion and needed to be replaced (at enormous cost). This was confirmed by the insurance company who said that it was not worth repairing. It was a basic model about 6 years old and the replacement value was deemed to be £999 (cost of a similar model at Currys). I was shocked and the insurers said that unlike most consumer electronics, Apple products do not fall in price; they improve in specification. Two things I have learned:a) Macbooks are very susceptible to liquid damage b) if you are going to go Mac then you need good insurance.

Re: Ofcom get it half-right

I don't think 0800 numbers are actually free; I think they are free only to the caller. The company/instution who receives the call pays for either the call or use of number. Therefore, there is no reason why 0800 should not be free to mobile phone callers as the termination charge can be paid by the receipient either per call or as a block fee to mobile companies. Most 0800 numbers are for sales lines or help lines. They are free to (landline) callers either to encourage them to call (for sales) or because it is an important service (e.g. government helplines).

The reason that assistive technology - and other equipment for people with disabilities - tends to be expensive is because the market is small. The fewer units that you can sell the higher the price has to be because the overheads are distributed less widely. Often, the actual product cost is relatively low which is why products can seem disproportionately expensive; we know it doesn't cost that much to make. However, although the manufacturing cost per unit is pretty much the same no matter how many you produce, the overhead cost per unit is greater if you expect sell 10 units than if you expect to sell 10,000.

Re: School Books

Textbooks do not have to 'comply' with the National Curriculum; it's not that prescriptive. However, books that fit into the National Curriculum are more likely to sell. For example, the National Curriculum puts quite a lot of emphasis on the Home Front during WWII and as a result almost all town/city museums have a display about life during WWII because that will attract school parties. There's also a strong school-based market for both fiction and non-fiction books about WWII for children. So... if you write a children's book about the experience of a WWII evacuee (following the success of 'Goodnight Mr Tom') you could be accused of cashing in on the National Curriculum but not using the government's IP.

Re: Choke off the writing of new textbooks? I hope so.

Most people who write books for children are not teachers although some may be former teachers. This news item is not only about textbooks but also novels, story-books, picture books and children's non-fiction.

This is the problem "if your Work is provided for a fee (including as part of any subscription-based product or service), you may only distribute the Work through Apple ..."

A the moment many materials for university courses (for which students pay fees) are distributed through university online learning environments. These tend to be closed platforms that are only available to registered students. If, however, tutors want to produce iBooks instead then they can only distribute them through iTunes, even if there is no additional charge for the books. How will iTunes ensure that iBook course materials are only available to the students who have paid (the university) for them? Almost certainly they won't because the point of iTunesU is that it is a free provider of university content. However many universities do not want to distribute all their course materials for free; they want and need fee-paying students (and will not want to give Apple a 30% cut of the fees). Therefore there is no incentive - in fact there is a disincentive - for a uni to use iBooks. Better to go with Adobe Presenter which allows users to use whatever distribution mechanisms they like. Of course, Adode Presenter output is Flash-based so will not run on iPads. Result? Uni students are advised to buy Android tablets (or even provided with Android tabs for free) so that they can access course content.

iBooks author should be a loss leader for Apple because students will need to buy expensive iPads in order to use/read iBook textbooks. Forcing authors and institutions to distribute materials for fee-charging courses only through the iTunes store may well force universities and other education providers into the arms of Apple's competitors.

If it interfaces well with MS software (Exchange, Office) then businesses will buy it. The iPad just about manages to work with those products but smoother and more secure integration and the ability to run versions of MS Office that don't mess up your formatting are what drove the Windows laptop market and will do the same for Windows tablets. Business IT buyers want products that are easy to support and which work well with the products and systems that the company/institution already runs.

But when is the purple iPhone coming out?

Insurance claims

Following a burglary we have to replace several electronic items. The insurers have dealt with this by valuing the items on the Currys website and issuing a DSG voucher to that value (for which the insurance company gets a big discount). Thus, much as I loathe DSG, we will have to shop there and at DSG's prices.

But what about...

Read your own reports!

It might be 'not at all' in your own experience but earlier this month you reported on this case http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/11/frozen_iphone/ where Apple refused to repair an iPhone on the grounds that damage had been caused by use in too cold an environment (Norway).

I don't care about Flash, HTML5 etc

4od? ITV Player

Video isn't only smut. Flash is used for TV catch-up video services such as 4od or ITV Player (and BBC iPlayer). This could well be a significant factor with regard to iPad sales in the UK and other countries with Flash-based TV services. Flash is also used for a lot of e-learning content and so lack of Flash is likely to limit the iPad's usefulness for education.

Flash isn't only about games and over-designed websites and some of the Flash content that iWhatsits don't allow is the very stuff that people could drive iWhatsit purchases.